Chinese chops

Shashank Chouhan

Arguably the most widespread, experimented and adapted cuisine on earth, Chinese food remains a mystery to many a-connoisseur primarily because every country has its own style of Chinese. But contrary to general perception, Chinese food is not bland or spiceless. It is made in tiny amounts and tastes good when made in wok and served with soy sauce. Its not just Manchurian or chilli chicken by the way.

China, the vast land that it is, has a cuisine which is based upon 8 regions. It thus is categorized into- Anhui, Cantonese, Fujian , Hunan, Jiangsu , Shandong, Szechuan , Zhejiang.

The highly sophisticated food culture is a unique characteristic to Chinese culture. It is probably also the best-known feature of Chinese culture by foreigners. What also differentiates a Chinese meal from a western meal is that it has a lot of things to eat in a single meal!

A typical Chinese course:

Tea (jasmine green tea or woo-long black tea)

Appetizer (usually cold seasoned meat)

Main dishes (as many as ten, usually four dishes plus one soup)

Dessert

The Chinese love rice. Even though wheat based noodles are the most popular Chinese gourmet export, rice remains the dominant food. Fried Rice ofcourse is the most popular of them all.

Chopstick fingers

That`s not a dish but if you see a Chinese person happily eating his Manchurian with two thin sticks in a manner you can never emulate, then `Chopstick fingers` is what you will most probably call the person. Chopsticks are the primary eating utensil in Chinese culture for solid foods. The bite-sized food that they prepare is perfectly picked up by chopsticks.

But you stick to the fork if you can`t hold the sticks, let alone eat with them.